The most wanted terrorist in Iraq is dead. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his spiritual leader and others are all dead as a result of an air-strike when US planes dropped two 500 lb bombs on what they thought was a safe house.

(BBC)

Al-Zarqawi and several aides, including spiritual adviser Sheik Abdul Rahman, were killed Wednesday evening in a remote area 30 miles from Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala, just east of the provincial capital of Baqouba, officials said.

Al-Zarqawi’s death gives Iraq a chance to “turn the tide” in the fight against the nation’s insurgency, President Bush said at the White House.

“The ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders,” Bush said. “Zarqawi’s death is a severe blow to al Qaeda.”

This effort to track and terminate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi came from suburb intelligence gathering and a tip from someone in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s network. What a great lesson for the other terrorist in Iraq that the Iraqi people are getting tired of you killing their own.

He said that U.S. forces were trailing Sheikh Abdul-Rahman, Zarqawi’s spiritual adviser, and that led them to a small house in a palm grove area where they also discovered the al Qaeda leader was staying.

The misguided terror propagandist tried to put a positive spin on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Try as they might we can guarantee that al-Zarqawi would have liked others to have been martyr, not himself.

At 0722 GMT the pan-Arab al-Arabiya TV carried a screen caption quoting its correspondent reporting: “Maliki announces the death of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.”

At 0729 GMT al-Jazeera reported that Iraqi TV was quoting the Iraqi prime minister as saying that Zarqawi had been killed. The TV added that “the Pentagon has not thus far confirmed the report”.

What was some of the Iraqi people’s reaction to the death of Zarqawi? Funny, this is not usually reported on the MSM. They make it appear more that the Iraqi people despise the Americans rather than the terrorists that kill them everyday with bombing. Reactions of the people:

All of those interviewed expressed joy at the news

“We consider this a great delight to the people because good has got to prevail,” said one.

“We congratulate the Iraqi government on this great achievement because it has cut off the snake’s head,” said another.

There was also anger from one elderly man who said that “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi deserves to be cut into pieces because he hurt, killed the people and slaughtered the Muslims.”